A country girl's Cairo dream becomes a trap of men deciding her fate.
As Marmar enrolls in the Faculty of Girls, she moves from Beni Suef to Cairo to live with her aunt's family. As her cousin Ahmed falls for her, his father finds them together in her room and insists that Marmar must return home. Marmar's family decides to wed her to the businessman Gadallah.
Acting
Soheir El Morshedy's silent resistance speaks louder than dialogue.
Direction
Barakat frames Cairo as beautiful prison for ambitious women.
Director
Henry Barakat
Soheir El Morshedy
Marmar
Salah Mansour
Mahmoud Gadallah
Mahmoud Yassin
Ahmed
Aleya Abdel Moneim
Ahmed's mother
Salama Elias
Salem/ Marmar's father
Hayatem
Belly Dancer
Malak Elgamal
Marmar's mother
Mahmoud Rashad
Feryal's father
Mohamed Khairy
Adel
Sayed Abdel Karim
Maaty
Alia Ali
Azza Fouad
Young Marmar
Samia Shokri
Frayal
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This 1972 melodrama captures Egypt's post-Nasser identity crisis, where rural migrants flooded cities seeking modernity—often finding the same old patriarchy in new buildings.
Director Henry Barakat was infamous for making women's suffering look gorgeous; critics called it exploitation, fans called it honest. Marmar's face in the arranged marriage scene? Pure Barakat aesthetic.
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